


(you were) my versailles at night

by thimble



Series: SASO 2017 [28]
Category: Kuroko no Basuke | Kuroko's Basketball
Genre: Alternate Universe - Artists, Alternate Universe - Reincarnation, M/M, Non-Linear Narrative
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-08
Updated: 2017-10-08
Packaged: 2019-01-10 18:57:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,992
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12305574
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thimble/pseuds/thimble
Summary: He isn't surprised when Red walks up to him when the session is done, barely allowing enough time for him to get his robe back on before speaking up, smooth as a gravel road, "hey, uh. Do I know you from somewhere? You look really familiar.""You must have mistaken me for someone else." He ties the robe's makeshift belt into a loose knot, you know, for modesty, smiling as a telltale blush blooms on Red's face. "I think I'd remember if we'd met."





	1. i wish i'd known how much you loved me

**Author's Note:**

> written for [these](https://sportsanime.dreamwidth.org/22249.html?thread=11908585#cmt11908585) prompts.

He sees Taiga in his dreams and it shouldn't be strange, it shouldn't be noteworthy, it shouldn't be as unsettling as it is (people he didn't know or who mattered less have made their appearances too.) He sees Taiga in his dreams and maybe it means something (that he's fallen), maybe it means a myriad of things (that his subconscious realized it before he did, that he'll have a harder time letting go than he thought if that's really what he means to do.) He sees Taiga in his dreams and it's not the first time, but it's the first time he's woken up crying.   
  
He sees Taiga in his dreams and it's not really Taiga at all, not the one he knows, but that Taiga had looked at Tatsuya the same way this Taiga (his Taiga) did, like he's all the world and more. And Tatsuya, or whoever he'd been in his dreams, had left him anyway.  
  
He wonders if who he'd been in his dreams — or in that life, because that's what all of this has been meaning to tell him, isn't it? — regretted leaving Taiga. He wonders if he'll have to carry that regret alongside his own.   
  


* * *

  
  
He'd expected a number of reasons for why Taiga refused to show him his studio. Taiga didn't strike him as a intensely private person — between the two of them, Tatsuya's the one who fit the criteria — so he must have some heavily guarded art secret, an incomplete project or maybe even some weird fetish. What else could it have been? Tatsuya figured he'd surprise him by dropping by unannounced, he'd draw back the curtain on whatever Taiga's been hiding, they'd laugh about it and that'd be it.   
  
He didn't expect—  
  
"What is this?" The disbelief in his voice is proportional to the shame on Taiga's features, and Tatsuya knows right then that Taiga doesn't have an explanation, or, at least, not one that he'll accept. Because Taiga is Taiga, he still tries his hardest.  
  
"It's not what you think—"  
  
Tatsuya glances around the room, at the canvasses and sketchpads and all the work in them (some finished but mostly not), and wonders what kind of excuse Taiga could give for how each of them bears one undeniable, damnable thing: Tatsuya's own face.   
  
"You really don't want to know what I'm thinking right now." He can't help but laugh, abrupt and mocking, at the thought that he might've been dating some kind of stalker, this level of obsession way past what could be considered sweet or flattering. "I'm... I don't think I want you to call me again," he says, kinder than what he'd been considering. Whether he liked it or not, Taiga had gotten under his skin.   
  
"Wait, Tatsuya." Taiga's reaching for him, hands on his shoulders, eyes imploring him to listen. "I don't— I don't know why, but even before we met, I've been seeing you in my dreams, and I had to— I couldn't stop wanting to put you to paper, even if— That's why I didn't want you to see—"  
  
Tatsuya starts to laugh again, nervously now, as he pries Taiga's fingers off him. "I'm leaving, Taiga." He walks backwards towards the exit, trying to avoid the gaze of every portrait in the room, "and I don't want you to follow."  
  


* * *

  
  
He's used to having every eye in the room trained on him — one of the pros of being a life-drawing model, he supposes — but there's something different in the way that one redhead is looking at him. The color of said redhead's hair seems lifted off a palette, and he's built like a Greek statue, if Tatsuya were to use an art student's vernacular. Red stares at him to commit his likeness to paper and occasionally, Tatsuya stares back.   
  
He isn't surprised when Red walks up to him when the session is done, barely allowing enough time for him to get his robe back on before speaking up, smooth as a gravel road, "hey, uh. Do I know you from somewhere? You look really familiar."  
  
"You must have mistaken me for someone else." He ties the robe's makeshift belt into a loose knot, you know, for modesty, smiling as a telltale blush blooms on Red's face. "I think I'd remember if we'd met."


	2. you and i were fireworks

_It's no secret that Tatsuya is beautiful, and if Taiga had a single poetic bone in his body he'd abuse and overuse every synonym for the word in every language he knows, though he also knows that none of them would be enough to describe Tatsuya. He takes to paper instead, using paper and ink to tell the world (or just Tatsuya; that works too) how he sees Tatsuya, in all his grace, his coldness and his warmth, his imperfections. None of them distracts or subtracts from the way the sun hits his skin in sheets of gold in the day, or the way the moon seems to turn it to marble in the night, all sculpture and shadows. Taiga doesn't have the musical talent to turn Tatsuya's laughter into a sonata, so he commits the curve of Tatsuya's smile onto the canvas, detailing the lines at the corners of his eyes that appear when he means it._  
  
_Tatsuya would glance inside Taiga's studio, nearly every inch of it decorated in his likeness, and a flush would paint his cheekbones in some mixture of pleasure and embarrassment._  
  
_"Is this what I really look like?" he'd ask, looking at loose sketches of himself that Taiga had drawn. He's dancing in them, drunk off wine and happiness, and it happens to be one of Taiga's favorite memories._  
  
_"No," Taiga would say immediately, taking the sketches off his hands to spin Tatsuya in his arms, perhaps to create the memory. "You're even better in real life."_  
  


* * *

  
  
He never thought he'd see Tatsuya again. Tatsuya had a good reason to be alarmed, and Taiga wouldn't have blamed him if he never wanted to come back. Taiga had been too afraid to call or even go to the life drawing class where they'd first met; he could take Tatsuya avoiding him, but not Tatsuya turning cold when their eyes collide, or worse, treating him like a stranger. Better to stay away from him completely, just like Tatsuya's better off staying away too.   
  
It wouldn't have worked out, Taiga had told himself. He'd been dreaming of Tatsuya for as long as he could remember, trying to perfect him on paper to no avail. If Tatsuya hadn't seen his face all over Taiga's studio despite having known each other only a short while, then Taiga's expectations of him would never have matched up to the real person and he'd resent Tatsuya for it.  
  
(Except none of that's true, because nothing Tatsuya could do — fuck up, or be cruel, or outright reject him — can ever make Taiga disappointed in him.)  
  
And now Tatsuya's here, looking more unkempt than Taiga's ever seen him. The differences are slight, but visible to someone who's committed his face to memory. His hair is askew, his eyes sporting shadows undernea.  
  
"Tatsuya," Taiga breathes, as if a louder voice might shatter whatever justification Tatsuya gave himself to return. "I'm—"  
  
"Don't say you're sorry," says Tatsuya, and for a moment Taiga thinks it might be the end, that Tatsuya only to break it off cleanly, but then Tatsuya continues, "it should be me. I shouldn't have run away."  
  
"You were freaked out—"  
  
"And I should have let you explain." When Taiga doesn't answer, Tatsuya exhales, as if working himself up to something. "The point is, I understand now, Taiga. Or I understand enough. Can I come in?"  
  
Taiga steps out of the way to let him inside, and he's hardly closed the door when Tatsuya finally says it.   
  
"I've been dreaming of you too."  
  
Taiga stares at the door, his hand still around the knob. Behind him, Tatsuya's rambling.   
  
"I don't know why, or how I know, but something's telling me that this is all happening because I hurt you, because I  _left_  you, before— before we even met. Before this life, as crazy as that sounds. And I don't even know if we can fix it, or if, knowing this, you still want me back—"  
  
He's interrupted by Taiga suddenly turning around and pulling him into his arms, face buried in his neck, his hold on Tatsuya firm and resolute.   
  
"We can fix it," he murmurs, tightening his grip. "We can fix it," he says, again, and Tatsuya's laughter at that is soft, rueful.   
  
"How are you so sure?"  
  
"Because," says Taiga, and in his voice seems to resound centuries' worth of forgiveness, "you aren't leaving now."


	3. you are my favorite what-if

Tatsuya isn't certain when he started looking at Taiga and feeling something other than fondness and love. For some time, that had been all there was between them, and they'd gotten heady on it, like a well of wine that refused to run dry. For some time, Taiga's lips were nothing but sweet, and Tatsuya would drink him down and lick his lips at the taste when they were done. For some time, everything was good; Taiga would spend his days painting, but mostly painting Tatsuya, and Tatsuya would be content to remain a muse to someone so vibrant and full of talent.   
  
But that time seems to have ended, because when he looks at Taiga now, all he tastes in the back of his throat is bitterness that only worsens when he swallows. Had it been when other people began to take notice of Taiga's art, and Taiga began to paint them instead? Had it been when offers for commissions and invitations to gallery shows arrived at Taiga's doorstep, threatening to steal from the quiet life he and Tatsuya had built for themselves? Had it been when Tatsuya realized that all he will ever be is the face in the paintings, and never the hands behind them?  
  
Taiga had accepted one of the offers, and it's about to take him away someplace far, for as long as the art needs him to be there. Maybe Tatsuya's been asking the wrong question; maybe it's about when he started not being enough to make Taiga stay.   
  
"Are you sure you don't want to come with me?" asks Taiga on the eve of his departure. His clothes are all packed, so it's just the materials now. He still has paint flecked on his arms, under the beds of his nails, and Tatsuya looks on, eyes lightly narrowed, as Taiga gathers pencils and brushes that Tatsuya wasn't supposed to touch.  
  
"I'm sure," says Tatsuya. They've had this conversation before, but the way he saw it, if Taiga didn't want to be tied to where they were, then he didn't want to be tied to Taiga. It's not about the time or the place; if they'd been other people, it would've been different, but they're only themselves, and maybe what that means is that they were always meant to say goodbye.   
  
This, he doesn't say out loud. Instead, "I'll just distract you."  
  
"You're very distracting," says Taiga, grinning. He opens his arms for Tatsuya to step into them, and with Taiga's embrace, as always, comes a kiss, so earnest and so euphoric that Tatsuya's nearly swept away in the tides of it again. When he chases after Taiga's mouth, for one final taste before this all ends, Taiga speaks.  
  
"I'll be back before you know it." In it is the unspoken  _wait for me,_  and with that the moment's gone, and all Tatsuya wants to do is push him away and usher him out the door. How selfish.  
  
(Is he talking about Taiga wanting him to wait, or about himself for wanting Taiga to stay? Did any of it matter anymore?)  
  
"And I'll be here when you do," replies Tatsuya, because it's what Taiga would've liked to hear, even if it's the last thing he means.


End file.
